November 2022

Ever and her friends from school had to make a video acting out part of the book Wonder, which they were studying in English. I'll keep this video so Ever can look back at herself as an almost-11-year-old. 

Ever had such a fun fall soccer season with Jim and George Subrebost coaching and so many friends on the team, including Grace Spengler and Hollis Holder (old friends from Palmquist Elementary), Ellis Martindale (friend from our old ward), and Kyra Nearents (from our neighborhood/ward). A friend of Leela's, Carolina, was also on the team, along with Pieper Steenstra from the Ivey Ranch Ward, whose family we really enjoyed getting to know. Carolina's family are also members of the church and attend a ward in Vista. Pieper's mom, Annie, and Carolina's mom, Gabi, and I were all serving as Primary presidents at the time, so we got to commiserate about the Primary programs. Such a fun group.

Grace, Ever, and Leela got some post-game lunch and cotton candy at Le Papagayo in Carlsbad.

Ever got to attend a rock-climbing activity at Mesa Rim Climbing Center in San Marcos with her Girl Scout troop. George Subrebost took her and Leela and sent me lots of videos and pictures of Ever killing it on huge walls. He said she was amazing. She loved it. 

Wren quickly made three good friends at school - Sienna, Fiora, and Lola. They gave themselves nicknames that I don't know how to spell, so I'll do it phonetically - See-see, Fee-fee, Lo-lo, and, for Wren, Wee-wee (which Ever informed Wren means "pee"). Wrenzy's teacher, Mrs. Haseyama, snapped a pic of  someone in the foreground I don't know, plus Wren, Fiora, and Lola. 

Leela and Ever enjoyed another post-game meal out, this time at Pizza Port:

Wren, Amelie Oddou, Elle Oddou, Alina Karner, and Tiny at Elle's baptism:

We went to SkyZone with Ever's school friends (plus Lola, who is Wren's friend and the sister of Ever's friend Lucy) for homeschool P.E. 

L to R: Lola, Lucy, Ella, Tiny, Ailana, Leela, Wren, and Ever

I found this interesting writing/"talk" by Bear, where you read the first line, skip to the third line, skip to the fifth line, and so forth. Then after you finish the page that way, you go up and start at the second line, skip to the fourth, etc. She's so fun.

Our people were clearly not getting enough sleep, as they were passing out in church.

A glimpse into Ever and Wren - note written by Ever to Wren after upsetting her.   

Sweet Bear, with her angelic face, baked while Tiny looked on. 

I tried really hard to make pies (for Thanksgiving, I think, but neither is pumpkin), and it was a disaster. I decided to make it simple by using Trader Joe's pie crusts, but their new method of folding and packaging means the crusts end up in tiny pieces. 

Then my pies shrank like crazy. So upsetting. I'm determined to conquer pies. 

I have no record of Thanksgiving, other than possibly those pies. Jim worked the day after Thanksgiving, as always. I took the girls on a typical Southern California hike, the location or name of which I do not remember. It was not amazing (because Southern California), but at least it had some good rocks to scramble around. I like this first picture of Ever.  

Tiny's sitting at the top.

We made a BR stop on the way home. 

Pretty proud of myself for heading up that outing all on my own. 

That Saturday, we all went bowling.

And we got the most ridiculous Charlie Brown tree from Costco. All our friends had been buying great trees from Costco, so I finally decided to save some money and get on that train. They're all wrapped up, so you don't really know what you're getting. Jim grabbed one, brought it home, cut off the netting, and discovered that other than a couple of branches at the very bottom that had to be cut off when he trimmed the trunk, the first few feet of the tree were completely bald. He cut off a bunch of the trunk but didn't dare cut more lest he make the tree super short. So we had a tiny, weird, levitating tree.   

Every time I walked by it, I thought, "50 dollars." I was so disturbed about wasting that much money on such a ridiculous tree. Putting a present on its end didn't come close to filling the void. 

As we got more presents, the girls stacked them in towers, but it didn't help. I knew we could return the tree, but Jim didn't want to deal with hauling it out, strapping it to the car, driving it back, and starting over with another one. So I actually took a picture and showed it to the return people the next time I went to Costco. The guy pretty reluctantly offered me 50% back, so I felt much better after that. 

We had a bizarre influencer stay in the cabin with some girl friends. She seems to want to be a Disney princess or something and creates odd content, but she has 223k followers. What is wrong with our world?! Anyway, we didn't know she was an influencer until she tagged us in photos from her stay. I'm not posting the indecent ones.